


healing

by rangerhitomi



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: M/M, Multi, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 16:03:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sometimes it's best to get all the tears out at once. it hurts less later, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	healing

He’s standing on the other side of the hospital rooftop, taunting, jeering, a twist to his lips that makes Yuma tense up. But Yuma knows he’s not intending to hurt him. They’re friends, after all.

_Now come at me, together with Astral!_

He’s standing on the dock, emotionless, vacant. No playful jeer playing around his mouth, no softness or frustration in his eyes. Yuma cries out to him  _why, why, **why**_  but receives no answer.

_Say something!_ he screams, and with flashes of multicolored lights, there they are, all of them, the Seven Barian Emperors; but Yuma has eyes only for the one in the middle. There is no softness in those emotionless eyes, one blue and one red; there is no twist to his lips, because there is no mouth on his face. Yuma knows he’s not intending to hurt him. They’re friends after all. At least, he thinks he won’t hurt him. They’re friends, they’re friends,  _we’re friends-_

Aren’t they?

He tells Yuma that they’re destined to fight but Yuma can’t accept that, won’t accept it, because  _we’re friends, we’re friends; damn it, Shark, why are you being so stupid? I don’t care that you’re a Barian. We’re still friends. We’re still…_

Another flash of light, a tingle followed by a jolt through his body, and he hears  _terrible things_ ; he sees death, hears the cries for vengeance and the screams of the bodies he smells burning, tastes the smoke on the air; he _feels it_ now, the pain in his heart – Shark’s pain, Shark’s anguish, Shark’s hatred and despair –  ** _NO_** _,_  he cries, but there’s no one to hear him now; he’s trapped in his own head, trapped in Shark’s head, except it’s not Shark, is it, it’s Nasch and _**NO**  _he’s Shark, he’s Shark, he knows Shark cares, he can _feel it_   _**NO**_  their true enemy is me, I am a Barian _**NO**  _I have to fight Yuma _**NO**  _I have to sever my bond with him, with him and Kaito and Astral because it’s my duty to save my world, I’m responsible, they died for me and I need to repent, I need to atone, I need to save them and protect them and they need me here and _**NO**  –_

-it’s too much for Yuma to bear any more.

—-

When he wakes, he’s in a small room, maybe at Heartland Tower, and Kotori is there and she’s been crying – still is – and the others are there too, except Tetsuo and III and IV and V, which Yuma wonders – but his chest hurts; there’s a physical ache where Shark had torn a part of him away, and he buries his head in his hands and cries, he screams, and he doesn’t hear a weak voice tell the others to go, and he doesn’t hear Kotori argue through choked sobs and if he did he wouldn’t have cared because all that he knew was that he had Astral back, but in exchange, cruel fate had taken Shark from him.

A pair of hands grab his wrists and pull his hands away from his face and Yuma looks up through blurry eyes at Kaito, whose face is covered in scrapes and bruises and whose body doesn’t look much better and he looks about as tired as Yuma has ever seen him – and no wonder, after what Heartland did to him – but he’s looking at Yuma with concern, and that’s something Yuma has rarely seen on him.

“I didn’t imagine it, then,” Kaito says softly, and Yuma’s shoulders shake as he chokes out a  _no_  and he breaks down again. The last time he did this, Kaito had hit him, but Kaito lets him cry this time; he hears a quiet, quickly stifled intake of breath from Kaito and realizes that Kaito must be trying to keep from crying, and that scares him – resolute, unyielding, invincible Kaito hurt too.

Of course, Yuma registers dimly; Kaito was Shark’s friend as much as he was his. They had all been friends, even if they didn’t always get along, but they trusted each other and he knew Shark’s betrayal – Nasch’s betrayal, a voice reminds him – affected Kaito deeply.

“I can’t,” Yuma chokes out after a few minutes, and that’s as far as he can go. He winces as Kaito drags a sleeve across Yuma’s face in a clumsy effort to either show affection or make Yuma look more presentable, but he doesn’t really accomplish either because Kaito doesn’t show affection and Yuma probably looks like death.

“We have to.” And Yuma is acutely aware of the word  _we_ ; Kaito isn’t going to make Yuma go through this alone; he isn’t going to  _let_ Yuma go through it alone. “We have to fight, and if we can, we have to save him. We have to heal his soul.”

For a minute, Yuma is back on that hospital rooftop in the pouring rain, gazing at his best friend, who is standing behind his monsters as he offers Yuma words of encouragement in the biting way only Ryoga Kamishiro could.

_What’s your point, Yuma? Right now you are a gutless loser! A guy without courage to fight, who can’t grasp a win!_

For a minute, Yuma can see the rainbow, the world’s symbol of a promise to be there for each other always, he can smell the after-rain air mingling with the smell of Shark’s clothes as he wraps his arms around Shark, who tries to push him away half-heartedly and probably only because Astral’s watching, smiling, and Yuma can see the faint smile in Shark’s mouth and the gentleness in his eyes, and the flush of pink in his cheeks.  

_That’s right… I am fighting together with my friends to open a path to the future!_

“But what’s a future without him?” Yuma whispers, and Kaito hesitantly takes Yuma’s hands in his and tells him to look up. Yuma does, and Kaito’s face is full of pain, full of conflict, and his mouth trembles as he wordlessly mouths a response. Yuma waits, but Kaito falters.

He tries again. “Yuma,  _we_  have to save our world. That’s  _our_  destiny. Just as his… must be to save his world.”

“He promised.” And Yuma scoots closer and puts his head in Kaito’s chest and shakes; his head hurts and his nose is pouring and he can’t breathe very well, and his eyes are itchy and his shoulders ache but he keeps crying into Kaito and Kaito lets him and whispers  _I know, I understand_  because if he gets it all out now, maybe he won’t have any tears left to shed when time came to challenge Nasch-

-no.

When time came to challenge Ryoga Kamishiro to a healing duel of his own, he would be able to face him without reservation and with no regrets.


End file.
